Whatever It Was, They All Did It The Hard Way

November 25, 1988|By Al Bernstein.

These days you can`t open a magazine or newspaper without reading something about workaholics. You learn at once that workaholics have one thing in common: They get their kicks telling you they did it the hard way.

For them, at least, unless success is achieved through toil and sweat it doesn`t give real satisfaction. I decided to interview a few of these types to see what makes them tick. My opening question:

``How did you make your pile?``

``I worked 14 hours a day,`` I was told by Henry Scuttlebottom, an investment consultant. ``Of course, I was going to school at the time, and that probably cut into my grades. Still, I managed a B-plus average. Now I work harder than ever. I never let up.``

My next question: ``What do you do for relaxation?``

``Oh, I write a bit,`` Scuttlebottom responded. ``In fact, I`m on my sixth book now. Economics, of course. And I jog five or six miles before breakfast. Does worlds for you.``

Needless to say, I was both slightly nauseated and impressed. Perhaps depressed would be better.

Later, I called on my friend Carl Worthmore. Worthmore manufactured bearings, and he was rich, rich, rich.

``How did you make your pile?``

``I did it the hard way,`` Worthmore replied predictably.

``What`s wrong with the easy way?`` I countered. ``What`s wrong with just getting lucky? Suppose they found a way to make automobiles run on orange juice and you owned six orchards. Would that be bad?``

Worthmore wasn`t listening.

``I worked on an assembly line for years,`` he was saying. ``Wouldn`t have missed it for anything.`` Suddenly he held up his right hand. The forefinger was missing. ``Lost that on a punch press,`` he explained proudly. I had time for just one more call. Randy Merton, of the architectural firm of Randy Merton & Associates.

Randy looked unhappy.

``What`s wrong?`` I inquired cheerfully. It was good for once to see someone feeling rotten.

``Forty years of hard work down the drain,`` Randy confided gloomily.

``I`m filing bankruptcy.``

I stared at him. ``You mean,`` I gasped, ``that after all those years of ceaseless work, of struggling, of dreaming the American Dream . . . that after 40 years of being a workaholic, you`re broke?``

``To put it a bit more precisely, we`re down to our last million.``

My heart went out to him. ``What do you intend to do? Get a job?``

Randy looked at me as though I`d become separated from my senses. Finally he replied: ``I`m retiring. The wife and I are building a home in Palm Beach. Fourteen rooms, three bathrooms. Comfortable. And thanks to Social Security we`ll manage somehow.``